We've discussed some of these separately. This article combines things for us and adds some new details. And you'll note that it's an Associated Press article...not just some cub reporter. And it's a pretty thorough article with some interesting tidbits...

A western Pennsylvania school district whose board voted to eventually arm its school police instead got a court order over the weekend so officers in each of its schools could carry guns Monday in the wake of last week's school shooting in Connecticut.

Butler County President Judge Thomas Doerr's Sunday court order affecting the Butler Area School District and another for police in the South Butler County School District, both about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, were first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Quote:Sunday's court order allows those officers to "carry their own weapons on the job until such time as the school district purchases weapons for them," Strutt said.

The school board has an executive session scheduled later Monday to discuss the district's long-term security plans, but Strutt said discussions he's had with the school board lead him to believe "it will be a permanent thing with the school police officers being armed in every school."

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Quote:Thomas King, the solicitor for the neighboring — and much smaller — South Butler district, said officials there got a court order so two of their three police officers, both also retired state troopers, could carry weapons.

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Quote:The Pennsylvania Department of Education doesn't "sign off on the arming of school police," according to press secretary Tim Eller. Instead, the school code requires districts to get court authorization for officers to carry weapons. According to a database provided by the department, 130 of 765 school districts, charter schools, and vo-tech schools had officers authorized to carry weapons before the two Butler County districts joined them Monday.

I wasn't aware of this section of school code. Does anyone have a reference for it? Is it only for police, or can the court allow *anyone* to carry? Could a principal be empowered? Or security guards? Or only those with Act 120 clearances?